My go-to litmus test for any kind of “diversity and equity” rhetoric or policy is simple: flip the script.
If, for instance, it would be racist to forbid a black couple to adopt a white child, then, ipso facto, it’s racist to routinely forbid the adoption of Aboriginal children by whites. If it would be discriminatory to promote someone solely for being male and heterosexual, then it’s just as discriminatory to promote them solely for being female and/or homosexual.
A Minnesota farmer is suing the state, using just such an argument. In this case, his target is an agricultural grant programme predicated on race and gender.
The program, called the Down Payment Assistance Grant Program, provides up to $15,000 in funding to help “emerging” farmers purchase farmland. It is administered by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s Rural Finance Authority.
But only a select kind of emerging farmer.
Applicants must be Minnesota residents who have never owned a farm, earn less than $250,000 annually in gross agricultural sales, will farm the land for at least five years, and who will provide most of the labor and management of the farm.
So far, so good.
Now comes the DEI part.
According to the department, to be eligible, applicants must be women, veterans, disabled, American Indian or Alaskan Native, 35 or younger, urban, “members of a community of color,” individuals who are “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, or asexual (LGBTQIA+),” or “any other emerging farmers as determined by the commissioner.”
No doubt the ideal candidate would be a black lesbian from Chicago in a wheelchair. How, exactly, any of that would make them a productive farmer is anyone’s guess – but the suspicion that actually growing anything and feeding anyone is a secondary consideration. Just park the wheelchair on the porch, whittle up a dildo or two and the taxpayer’s money will keep rolling in.
Just don’t be white or male.
The plaintiff, Lance Nistler of Kelliher, Minnesota, is a white man who wants to purchase 40 acres of farmland in Beltrami County, Minnesota, for growing soybeans, oats, and wheat. He currently works on his relatives’ farm.
He complied with all eligibility requirements when he sought the grant. Out of 176 applicants, Lance was selected ninth in the grant lottery.
And then the state bureaucrats administering the scheme kicked him right back to the end of the list, as if he was a high-achieving Asian kid fighting for a place at Harvard against a black dullard on a basketball scholarship.
Unknown to him at the time, the program put a premium on “emerging” farmers – as the department defines them – when awarding funds, regardless of lottery results, according to the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF). The foundation, a Sacramento, California-based national public interest law firm that fights government abuses, is representing Mr Nistler […]
PLF attorney Andrew Quinio weighed in on the case.
“Minnesota believes Lance Nistler is less deserving of a farm because he has the wrong skin color and sex.”
Not only are such ‘DEI’ policies a dagger-blow to MLK’s dream, the court case is determined to show that they’re illegal.
“It is unfair for the government to advantage or disadvantage anyone for benefits based on immutable characteristics like race and sex. Lance Nistler seeks to be treated equally with any other prospective farmer,” the lawyer said […]
The grant program violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, he said.
They’ve got some solid precedent behind them.
“I think we have a very good chance of prevailing given the Supreme Court’s ruling last summer in Students for Fair Admission v Harvard,” Mr. Quinio said.
The Harvard case concerned the use of racially discriminatory admissions policies in the nation’s colleges.
In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that for too long, universities have “concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin.”
Zero Hedge
Failing that, Lance Nistler could always sue on the basis of being an oppressed minority. After all, by the left’s own arguments, straight, white men have been pushed to the bottom of the intersectional ladder – they’re the victims, now!
